Tricks of the Trade (13 page)

“Sharon's in the workroom,” Nick said. “I don't know where Nifty and Pietr disappeared to.”

“Nift was getting lunch right behind me,” I said around a mouthful of grinder. “He should be back soon, if he doesn't eat there.” Mostly we came back to the office, but I could understand him needing a little away-time. I wouldn't snitch him out to Venec. “Pietr was down the hall half an hour ago—hell, he could be anywhere.”

As though on cue, we all peered around the room, trying not to look obvious. But no Pietr materialized out of invisibility. He must have gone somewhere else for food.

“How about your fearless leaders?”

“They've been in the back office powwowing all
morning,” Nick said, finally getting tired of his cat's cradle and letting the current-threads slide back under his skin. “You want we should call them out, or you want to go back in?”

If Danny went private with what he knew, expecting the Big Dogs to dole out what we needed to know, I'd kill him. He knew it, too.

“Call 'em,” he said. “Politely—it's interesting but not urgent.”

I let Nick do the honors. I might be getting the hang of dealing with the Merge pushing at me all the time, but ever since Venec walked me to my door last week, and that little spark-show in the office, we'd been keeping a very careful distance from each other; walls up, if not so thick we couldn't sense each other at all. And now, with Nifty's comment still warm in my ear…yeah. Let Nick ping him.

Thinking about that, I decided to hold off telling Stosser about the warning a little longer, until Venec wasn't around. It had been a message for Stosser, anyway, right? No need to stress Venec about it.

The sigh I heard in the back of my head was definitely a memory-remnant from my mentor, disappointed in my decision-making, or my avoidance skills. Or both. I ignored it.

“We're supposed to go back to the main room,” Nick said.

 

While the three available pups filed in, joining Sharon, who was already there, Benjamin Venec took the seat at the table farthest away from the P.I., and leaned
back, trying to give every appearance of casualness while studying the other man intently. It wasn't that he didn't like Hendrickson; the guy was smart, and professional, and had only been helpful, not to mention carefully polite. In any other setting they'd probably be friends, if not drinking buddies.

The only complaint he could bring against the guy was that he was a terminal flirt—and that Bonnie responded. Considering their respective personalities and inclinations, the flirting was hardly surprising. Ben swallowed the annoyance. He didn't have any right to complain—hell, he didn't have the right to say anything if they were all over each other outside the office. Same way he had no right to frown over the fact that Bonnie and Pietr occasionally warmed sheets together. So long as it didn't have any impact on their work—and it hadn't.

The Merge didn't see it that way at all. It wanted him to drop-kick the faun out of the office, and Pietr likewise. Ben squelched the urgency the same way he would hunger pains, or the need to pee while he was on stake-out, and listened to what Hendrickson had to say without showing any emotion whatsoever. Hendrickson had been a cop, and he was fatae. That crossed a lot of boundaries, and made him useful. That was all that mattered.

The P.I. didn't consult notes, his palms flat down on the table while he spoke. “Your floater's name was Aodink. He was well-known among a certain portion of the community as a hardback with a loud mouth.”

“Hardback?” Nick asked. He was seated next to the faun, which was interesting, considering how the pup seesawed on how he felt about the fatae. Ben hoped that
Shune was finally figuring out they were just like humans: some good, some bad, most mostly neither good nor bad because they didn't have that much ambition beyond the next meal and the next screw.

“Physical labor,” Hendrickson clarified. “Not as dumb as he looked, but better at taking orders than giving them. Never going to be middle management, that one. Did a lot of contract work for construction companies, off the books, naturally.” Most fatae were, unless they could pass for human. Too many questions, otherwise.

“Off the books…and nonunion? Do the fatae even have unions?”

Venec noted that Bonnie looked startled, and then thoughtful, at Pietr's question. She knew something, or had thought of something.

“Not a union as such, no.” Danny looked equally thoughtful. “You know the fatae—we're all clannish but not so much with the playing well together. Like lonejacks. Anyway, our boy Aodink disappeared about a week ago, but he wasn't working, so nobody thought anything about it. His friends aren't, shall we say, the sort to raise any kind of official alarm.”

Venec nodded. That would explain why the pups hadn't been able to find anything. In anything that might bring official—meaning either Null or Council—attention on them, fatae were more likely to go to ground, sometimes literally, than talk about it. That meant the gossip would be limited, and unlikely to be shared with humans.

“Any idea who might have wanted him thoroughly dead?” Bonnie was leaning forward across the table now,
her entire body engaged in the question, like a cat that had suddenly identified a mouse in the room, whiskers to tail on alert.

“Sorry, no.” Hendrickson shook his head. “Nobody admitted to a beef with the guy. He had the usual ratio of drinking buddies and people who'd like to hit him with a two-by-four, but none of it sounded murder-weight.”

Bonnie and Sharon were disappointed, like they'd expected more, and Nick was positively crushed, but Ben was grimly pleased. “Thank you. That's helpful.”

“It is?” Nick, now looking perplexed. “I mean, yeah, we have a name now, but…”

“Names have power.”

That was Bonnie, twigging as fast as he'd expected. “With a name, we can go to the Bippis community and ask specific questions, and they'll answer. Or, at least, not not-answer, the way they were stonewalling us before. Honestly, Nick, I've
told
you to read your fairy tales! Hello, Rumplestiltskin?”

“Oh. Right. You mean, even without a spell, a name can compel someone to tell us the truth? I mean, even though it's not
their
name?”

“Some,” Hendrickson said. “Not so much as it used to be, when names were private things. But once you know a fatae's true name, it's like you've got a key to the lock, and everyone assumes you've got a right to what's behind the door. That's why a lot of the fatae have use-names, and unless you're immediate blood-kin, you never know 'em by anything else. Demon do that. And some of them create their own names, invest all they are into
those—like nicknames, only more so—and that's where the default power goes.”

Ben listened to the explanation, wondering idly if Hendrickson was aware that he referred to the fatae as “they,” as though he wasn't half-fatae himself. Not that Ben could say anything about someone else being in denial, or at least trying to distance himself from something. “We're sure that's his true name?”

The faun just nodded, and Ben nodded in return. No need to ask specifics, between the two of them. If Hendrickson said it was so, that was enough.

“Sharon, you and…” He started to say Pietr, but he'd just pulled the pup to work with Lou on the police records for the break-in. “You and Nick take the name, interview the community again, see if anyone will cough up some more information, thinking that we already know enough to be dangerous.” He looked at the P.I. then. “Would you be willing to help us? I can authorize a small retainer for your time.”

Hendrickson hesitated, but to give him credit, his gaze didn't flicker away. “How small?”

“A hundred dollars, and we don't charge you for the coffee you've already gotten off us.”

The P.I. grinned, boyishly cute, dimples and all, and reached out a hard, calloused hand. “You weren't kidding about small, but yeah. Deal.”

He could see that Bonnie was annoyed—this was her case, after all, if Pietr wasn't there, and he'd just kicked her off it—but she kept her mouth mulishly shut, and waited while the others gathered up their stuff and left.

Then, before he could say anything to explain, apologize, or defend, she opened her mouth.

“There may not be a union as such,” she said, “but the fatae don't want us poking into Aodink's death. It didn't make much sense before, but…I got a visitor on my way back with lunch who had a message for Stosser specifically, to stay the hell out of their business. He didn't give details, but unless Ian's into something we're not being told about…”

If he was, Ben didn't know about it, either. The way Ian had been acting, though, it was possible. “That message come with enough force to tear clothing?”

She looked down at her knee, and her mouth pursed in unhappiness. “Just a love tap,” she said. “I get worse in fight practice.”

“I'll let Stosser know about the message.” He would do no such thing. Ian shrugged things like that off, except when he got annoyed enough to snap people in two, and neither reaction would be useful right now. “Forget about it, otherwise. We keep investigating.” She nodded, clearly expecting nothing else. A shove and a buzz-off weren't going to make Torres blink. His girl was tougher than that. “I know you wanted to keep on the case, but I have a side job for you. Stosser's request, before he disappeared again this morning,” he added, when she opened her mouth to protest. “Not a job—a favor.”

 

The address Venec Translocated me to—we were in a rush, apparently—was a nice little brick-faced building in the West Village. Nothing spectacular, but clean and well maintained…and a walk-up. The universe was
mocking me for not using the elevator in our building, clearly. My knee was starting to ache, and I put a hand on the cap, sending a pulse of current lightly into the abraded skin. You weren't supposed to use current to heal yourself—there was way too much that could go wrong—but making like Bactine and a bandage was fair use, especially if I was going to have to kneel down at some point soon.

The stairwell wasn't much to write home about, but it was clean and recently painted, and unlike too many of the buildings I'd looked at when I was apartment-hunting, it had a weirdly welcoming vibe. Hell of a lot nicer than my place, for certain.

I knocked at the top floor apartment, shifting my kit to my right hand to do so, and I'd barely let my hand drop before a voice came through the door.

“Yes?”

The voice was female, and dubious. “You called for a pup?”

The door opened, and I tried for my best “friendly pro” attitude. “I'm Bonnie.”

I could see the woman giving me a once-over, and I wished I'd worn all black today, instead of my favorite bright red blouse, like a miniature fire engine. Not exactly professional. Oh, well. Too late now.

“Come in,” the woman said, stepping back enough to let me by.

I went in. Nice apartment, if a little barren—all bland colors and stripped-down decor, like nobody actually lived there. Venec said she'd had a break-in, of the Talented sort. Unlike Sharon's gig, the client was Talent,
and certain of the source, so I was there to see if we could recognize any signatures. That meant he—or this woman, anyway—thought it was someone we'd already encountered, because it wasn't like there was a huge data base we could cross-reference against. Not yet, anyway. Something about this was a little weird, but mine was not to question why. “So, where's the stink?”

“Kitchen.” She waved off to the right. “Think you'll be able to pick anything up?”

Okay, doubt was something I did not like to hear, even if this woman technically wasn't a client. I patted my kit. “If it's there, we can sniff it out. Just give me a little time and space… Oh, man.” I stopped and stared into the space. It was less a kitchen than a kitchenette, barely enough room for two people and a fridge, but it had a window at the far end, and was filled with natural light. “Totally retro kitchen. I love it. This entire place is just so totally—are there any other apartments available in this building?”

The woman blinked in surprise. “One, actually. Downstairs.”

“Most excellent.” I hadn't known how badly I wanted to move out until I walked into this building. “The vibes in this place are…”

“Yeah, I know.” The woman finally looked amused, and I took a longer look at her—or tried to, anyway. It was tough to focus on anything beyond average height, average weight, brownish hair, pale-ish skin. It was like trying to find Pietr, only worse, like…

Comprehension hit me like a slap. Oh, sweet fuck. She
was a Retriever. And there was only one Retriever in the region who was female, and that age, and…

Wren Valere.

I tried really hard not to let my sudden penny-drop show on my face. It's one thing to meet a legend, another to act like a dork about it. Damn Venec anyway for not warning me!

Although it was kind of funny: for a legend, The Wren was awfully…unimpressive.

“Right.” I put my kit down on the floor and got down on my hands and knees to look around. Stay cool, stay cool, focus on the job…. I sat back and pulled some of my tools out. The undeveloped film was a trick Nick wanted us to try, to see if I could process any images onto the negatives. So far it was an utter loss in the field, but I was willing to give it another try or three. The vials of powdered metal were going to be more useful. I snapped on a pair of latex gloves before I opened those; they were like invisible splinters if they got on your skin, all sticky and sharp.

“Do you mind…” I gestured, indicating that she should get the hell out of my way. I didn't like anyone looming over me while I worked, not even a legend.

“Right.” I guess she felt the same about being observed, because she got it right away. “I'll be down the hall.”